


Blind devotion

by LesbianDragon_LD



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Death, Devotion, F/F, Minor Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Power Imbalance, Rough Sex, Vaginal Fingering, implied Catherine/Shamir Nevrand (kinda? if you squint), spoilers for FE3H, this is the darkest fic I wrote so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 19:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbianDragon_LD/pseuds/LesbianDragon_LD
Summary: (Spoilers for FE3H)Catherine is in love with a monster, deep down she knows it. The troubling part is that she pretends not to see it.





	Blind devotion

**Author's Note:**

> This is the darkest/saddest thing I wrote so far, be warned.  
I'm trying to branch out a bit from shameless smut, giving a bit more substance (I hope).  
I'm not the biggest fan of Rhea (in case you couldn't tell already) but I'll admit she is an interesting character and opens up a lot of possibilities.  
Also in case you couldn't tell from all this, it's needless to say that Rhea's kinda screwed up in this one but so is Catherine, kinda.

Catherine knew she was in love with a monster.  
She hadn’t always known, of course. Even if she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that she became aware, she remembered a time where she saw the archbishop just like everyone else saw her. As a student at the monastery she’d only see Lady Rhea during the day, when her words were wise and soothing, when her demeanor resembled the one of a kind and forgiving mother, shining brighter than any star and sweeter than the scent of any flower…but as Catherine grew up and became a knight, she’d started to see Lady Rhea during the night. And at night, the archbishop let cracks visible on her gentle mask.  
Catherine had seen them when Lady Rhea would painfully execute sinners in the shadows. She had seen them when Lady Rhea would discuss the death of potential traitors, babbling deep in paranoia about the safety of the holy church. She had seen them when Lady Rhea would bring up the subject of torture to keep herself informed and therefore always in control of everything and everyone. She had seen them at night, when Catherine would guard Lady Rhea’s room, only to hear desperate cries coming from the other side of the door… cries that sounded awfully similar to a beast crying for its mother.  
Catherine caught more of these glimpses the closer she grew to Lady Rhea. Any normal person would begin to question their loyalty and would never even dream of falling in love with someone like Lady Rhea. But Catherine wasn’t normal, of that she was sure.  
Catherine had a certain blindness to her, one she chose to have herself, and that made her ignore everything bad about Lady Rhea. When there was bad she would turn her head, always, never failing even once. Her Lady Rhea ceased to exist at night when things turned bad, and Catherine would close her eyes until morning, not opening them until her lady was returned to the form Catherine so desperately adored.  
Oh and how she adored her.  
That Lady Rhea gave her life ever since the day she saved a young Catherine from certain death. That day, when Catherine was weak and in pain, crying and ready to meet her end until she’d felt Lady Rhea’s warmth and Lady Rhea’s voice calling her back to earth. Her beautiful voice that had ringed in Catherine’s ears like a sweet bird’s chipper, as soft hands healed the wounds in her skin. It felt as if Catherine had been reborn, and in a sense she was… from that day onwards Catherine started believing that the Goddess was fully good just like the image of Rhea portrayed her. She started to believe there must have been beauty in the world that Rhea, and only Lady Rhea, was meant to build no matter the cost.  
If there was bad, she’d think, it would be a struggle and nothing more.  
An obstacle meant to be trampled over for something bigger and better.  
That was the reason Catherine conjured over the years to explain the horrible things she saw, and why her love for this woman whom she followed never seemed to be shaken, never seemed to confuse her or force her to reconsider. Whatever her Lady Rhea needed from her knight, Catherine was more than eager to oblige.  
Lady Rhea knew this as well, as everyone else knew to an extent. Catherine’s blind devotion was no secret to anyone and as such it wasn’t a surprise that Catherine started to become Rhea’s confidante. Eventually, where the archbishop went, her knight followed. Everywhere and always, the two found themselves together.  
And so, one night, it happened for the first time. Catherine found herself on the other side of the door, and instead of listening to Lady Rhea’s cries as she had so many times before, Catherine found herself feeling them.  
It had been an order, disguised as a request.

“Join me for a prayer, Catherine.”

Not that Catherine would have even considered refusing.

“Catherine, are you betrothed?” Rhea asked her after praying, her hands moving to hold Catherine’s in a gesture ever so intimate.

“N-no, my Lady, I devote myself fully to the church…”

Rhea’s hands rose to cup Catherine’s face when she tried to look away, forcing the knight’s blue eyes to meet Rhea’s beautiful green ones. Staring at Rhea’s eyes felt like staring into a majestic abyss, and Catherine could only feel as if she was under the gaze of the very Goddess who created all life on earth.

“The Goddess” Rhea started, snapping Catherine back into reality “is ever merciful. She allows love to flourish, even among the members of her church. Do you not wish to know love, Catherine? To know the emotion that drowns the sorrow of men and women?”

Of course she did. Even if words couldn’t leave her mouth, and only a weak nod could be expressed. She did, with all her heart. And only from Lady Rhea.

“Poor Catherine” Rhea chanted, as if she had read her mind “poor, poor Catherine. We have so much sorrow inside us, don’t we?”

Rhea spoke as if they were one the same. But deep down Catherine knew this wasn’t about her, or for her. This was for Lady Rhea, and she needed to please Lady Rhea.  
So inside those walls, she had felt Rhea’s warm embrace. Soft kisses and a promise to make Catherine feel loved. But as the beast inside Rhea started crying into the night, Catherine felt her sorrow deep in her skin. Rhea’s hands started to grip her as if they were claws, lips started drawing their fangs in a mixture of bites and kisses. Like a beast, Rhea teared through Catherine’s skin leaving scratches and marks on her body. A ragged voice, much like a growl, babbled and cried for a mother, for sinners, and for Catherine. But Catherine could only hear half of it, her mind too busy racing as warmth built up inside her.  
Clothes came off and Catherine took it all, pain stinging on the places Rhea touched but the voices in Catherine’s head screaming in victory. Lady Rhea was rough and aggressive, letting the beast inside her take Catherine as its prey, but Catherine held her place with pride. She was Lady Rhea’s devoted servant, and if this cured Lady Rhea, this is what she would take in.  
As she found herself being pinned against a wall, Catherine felt a hand stop tearing into her skin and reach for her entrance. Despite her age, Catherine had never been touched there before. She called out for her Lady Rhea, warning her that she was a virgin, only to be met with teeth biting down on her neck as if she was a doe being hunted by a wolf. The pain left her almost as fast as it had arrived, a soft warm tongue licking the spot ever so gently that it would seem to be trying to lick the teeth marks out of existence.

“The Goddess is good, my dear” Rhea proclaimed, as if she was referring to herself as the holy figure. And those were the last words Rhea would utter before her fingers pushed inside Catherine, pumping with desperate force.  
It didn’t hurt, but it felt uncomfortable. It felt wrong to be in her position, having dreamed about it for years yet finding the reality of being defiled by the archbishop being so much more sinful than what Catherine ever could have imagined. In her dreams everything had been so different.  
In her dreams, Rhea would be soft.  
Rhea would be smiling and kind and gentle. Like a story from a book, she’d be the light of Catherine, holding her as she would whisper sweet words, her lips feeling like velvet and her fingers dancing in gentle caresses.  
It was nothing like being touched raw and rough against a wall, messy and out of breath as her skin, sensitive from receiving her marks, throbbed red and sore. With the archbishop looming over her in an almost suffocating way, completely shadowed and overpowered by the woman she once thought to be absolutely perfect.  
Still, she melted Catherine under her fingers, the knight reaching her peak. When she was done, Catherine felt Rhea withdraw from her. The hand that was once inside her now caressed Catherine’s cheek in an almost motherly way, tainting her face with her own fluids.

“My knight…” Rhea whispered, her voice regaining its sweetness and soft tone, a smile on her face that made Catherine’s heart leap with joy “…my poor knight, you served me so well. You’ve let me drown my anguish, allow me to take care of you…”

With that, Rhea led Catherine to her bed, allowing her to rest. Her hands moved with great care, magic flowing through the tips of her fingers to heal Catherine’s wounds. A small voice inside Catherine’s head insisted that it wasn’t for her but rather to hide the proof of the bad things Rhea had done to her. Yet again, just as Catherine chose not to see, Catherine chose not to listen to the voice. Rhea laid beside her, embracing her knight and praising her, as gentle as Catherine loved to have her.  
In the end, that’s all that Catherine wanted and thus, that one moment of care was all that mattered. Catherine yearned for it every time they would repeat this ritual. It felt good, it felt like the only thing Catherine lived for. She knew it wasn’t right, nothing about either of them had ever been. Yet still she swore to protect that moment, to protect the nightly beast until morning brought back her Lady Rhea.

~.~.~.~

When their last battle together came to an end, after she had watched in horror as Edelgard and Byleth carve their weapons onto the dragon’s skull, she approached its corpse.  
She saw Byleth collapse shortly after, Edelgard tending to her almost instantly. None of the soldiers who fought for Edelgard seemed to notice or care to stop her as Catherine walked past them.  
She walked past Cyril’s corpse, briefly lamenting the boy’s death but not stopping beside him.  
Her only stop was the dragon, the dragon who once saved her, the dragon she had shared so much with when it was a woman.  
She stared down at the head, once beautiful green eyes now closed forever. Her face was now the face of a beast, dripping with blood that emanated a strange color.  
Catherine crouched and took a ring out of her pocket. She had once intended to slip it on Lady Rhea’s finger, knowing that they could never marry but hoping the archbishop would at least accept it as a vow of eternal servitude. But she no longer had any fingers, only beastly claws like the ones she had imagined whenever she dug into her skin. She gave the dragon’s face one last glance, and saw that even in death the beast’s expression contorted and disfigured in rage. She looked around, soldiers she once considered friends now dead and hurt, and all for the desire of one mad woman to recover her dead mother, as well as restore her family’s power.  
She heard Edelgard cry with joy as Byleth moved, life radiating from the old professor as their soldiers cheered. Both women looked so happy, so in love. Their embrace was nothing close to the way Lady Rhea once held Catherine, and as much as Catherine tried to remember the good she saw in their relationship, nothing came close to what she witnessed from Edelgard and Byleth. She told herself that, had their won instead of them, Lady Rhea would have done exactly the same.That if they were the ones to celebrate, Lady Rhea would have loved her the same way. But that was a lie, the little voice told her again. Nothing was right with either her or Lady Rhea, and their supposed love would have never felt as sweet as that. It had all been a mistake, the voice shouted louder in her head, and this time she couldn’t pretend not to have heard. Because she had seen it, as well.  
To her surprise, Shamir was the one to approach her. Her old partner had switched sides before war broke down, and during their fight she had fought for Edelgard.

“Make it quick” was all that Catherine could utter, despite wanting with all her heart to apologize to Shamir, to reveal that she was now wondering what a life without obsession for Lady Rhea could have been, and what that could have meant to her and to the people she had bonded with. She braced herself for death, but Shamir’s arrows never hit her. When she looked up, Shamir was extending her a hand, inviting her to take it.

“Lady Edelgard isn’t like Rhea. She said all foes who surrender are not to be harmed, and are free to flee…if you have nowhere to go, travel back to Dagda with me?”

Shamir was right, she had nowhere to go. No plans to make, no one who was waiting for her. So she rose, and took her hand. It was time to walk away.  
She glanced at the dragon, and back at the ring in her hands.  
Her voice in her head told her to throw her ring away, her heart told her to leave it with Rhea as she had always intended. Catherine took a moment to consider, to make up her mind.  
And as she slipped the ring in her own finger, Catherine wondered how she could have ever loved such a woman, such a monster.


End file.
